The Player's Twins (Book Two of The Great Age Plague series)

Chapter Thirteen

A/N-- Hey guys! This is going to be a short update. I'm finally back into writing this alongside some other stuff. School's been nuts lately but midterms are finally over. Unfortunately, still working on that teaching degree though, things have been super intense. Updates will probably be spotty over the next few months, but at least there will be updates, right? Anyway, enjoy the chapter.

The car ride was tense. Like, cut the air with a knife tense.

There was me, slightly pissed slightly shocked at Cally's reveal in the middle of class. Right when I was starting to get comfortable, she throws in this tidbit sending me for a complete loop. Luckily, I held it together and didn't say anything. Unfortunately, I was still holding it together. Holding it in too tight. I couldn't speak. I had no idea how to even begin breeching this topic.

"So...." she said awkwardly. She looked at me with her big brown eyes, but I kept my eyes on the road. It wasn't like I had a problem with her sexuality-- not at all. It seemed perfectly natural and so many puzzle pieces started to come together.

I couldn't help but remember the time when we were kids and Cally wanted to play house. She insisted we both be the mommies even though I told her I would be fine with playing a daddy.

"No!" she said, stomping her little pink fist on the play table. We were in her back playroom, the walls painted a light yellow with Whinnie the Pooh decorations all around. Later, this room would become the supplies storage room for the plague, but back then it was our haven. I still remembered it was a rainy day in the middle of fall, one of those odd days that left us inside but not quite longing to go outside. Summer had just ended and we had enough of playing outside.

I frowned, setting down my coloring book to give her an odd look.

"But there can't be mommies and mommies!" I said in my squeaky little six year old voice. In retrospect, it was hard to imagine just how high pitched my voice used to be. As a kid, you never notice your choice changing, at least not when you are a girl. It feels like one day you wake up and you simply can't sing the high notes of songs anymore.

"Yes there can," replied Cally, sitting down at the table and crossing her legs. Even back then she was the sassiest, girliest girl I had ever met "My cousin has a girlfriend and my mommy said we all need to be nice to her. So there."

At six, this was the first time I had ever heard of something other than the typical heterosexual couple. Instead of being freaked out, I just took it as fact. Cally had always been the more bold, inquisitive one, so as a result she ended up teaching me the ways of the world I was too scared to experience. I figured that being LGBT was just something I had never asked about, not something that society tried to hide from me for some asinine reason.

"But I thought we were both going to marry princes and be princesses together Cally. Can you marry a princess and still get the same thing? Can you wear a princess gown to the wedding or only her?" I asked, scrunching up my nose. I tried to picture little five year old Cally all grown up-- which was essentially just Selene Dion in my little six year old mind-- wearing a prince's tuxedo instead of a gown. It looked too silly and I laughed. Cally, red faced and indignant, took my coloring book and ripped out a page.

"You drewed this puppy stupid!" she yelled. Never before had I seen Cally this angry, but since I was only six I didn't understand what had caused the anger. Instead, I thought I simply did a bad job coloring in the puppy, so of course I started crying. I didn't realize she was changing the subject on purpose. I wondered idlly how many other moments like that I simply missed because of my own blindness.

The memory ended there. Of course, little Adira and little Cally made up (probably over shared chocolate chip cookies or cheese puffs, knowing me) but the memory of Cally making me cry stuck since it was so out of character. Now, it all made sense.

"Soo..." I finally said back, staring ahead. I didn't know what to do. Play it off like it was nothing? Tell her I supported her? Or be mad that she's been hiding such a big thing and decided to tell me in front of everyone else in our birthing class, of all the places?

"Normally, I'd say we get some ice cream. But, I don't even know if this town had any ice cream shops left," she said quietly, fiddling with a lock of her brown hair. I shrugged and stopped the car at a stop sign.

"I think Mr. J's Ice Cream closed shortly after the second wave of the plague," I said "And the shop owner didn't have any children so it's just kind of sitting there."

"Oh," said Cally, looking out the window.

"I think Josh makes some sometimes homemade. He has one of those ice cream balls you buy off the internet and add milk and salt and stuff to make ice cream," I said quietly.

Why were we talking about ice cream after such a huge reveal? What did this have to do with anything? As I made the final turn to go up the big Cliffside to Josh's place I felt the urge to scream in frustration and slam my head against the wheel. Normally, I'd ask Cally what to do in this situation. Or my mom. But now I had no one.

"Yeah, ice cream," said Cally. She turned back to the window and rolled it down, letting the icy sea air in.

We both breathed in the cool ocean air. Deeply.